Botany and Ormiston Times : Howick and Botany Times Wednesday March 12

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Howick and Botany Times, Wednesday, March 12, 2014 — 19
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the invisibles within
the ecology is to abandon it,
lock it up in a park.
“That’s environmentalism by
abandonment.”
Ecological systems, he says,
involve diversified, not single
species, “not just dairy, sheep
or orchard”.
In our efforts to be green and
sustainable, kitchen scraps
may be sent to a composting
facility so they can be
returned to ornamental
shrubs, he says.
Yet an alternative is to have
“chooks next to the kitchen.
They eat, lay eggs, ultimately
recycle and nothing goes on
a truck anywhere”.
“It’s not rocket science,” he
says, describing an eggmobile
system on his Virginia farm
where laying hens follow
the cows (the herbivores)
spreading the dung and
eating the parasites.
“Instead of injecting
the herbivores [with
pharmaceutical drugs] for
parasites, we collect about
$100,000 worth of eggs.”
Soil is carbon-centric, he says.
“Deep fertile soils were
not built with chemical
fertilisers. They were built
with something as beautifully
choreographed as animals,
plants, sunlight and compost.
“We use pigs to compost.”
Capitalising on the pig’s love
of eating corn, their bedding
is injected with it.
“In rooting around for the
corn the pigs are aerating,
injecting the oxygen and
building the compost without
any petrol or machinery.
Using an appreciating
infrastructure, the pigs do
the work and the profitability
changes, buying pigs for $50
and selling them for $600 –
that’s the kind of machinery I
like to buy.”
While he’s not opposed
to exporting or importing,
Joel says the foundation of
economies has to be “local-
centric”.
We must return to local-
centric food systems and to
food culinary arts. We cannot
abdicate our knowledge and
responsibility, but maintain
the integrity of the ecological
womb.
“When we extricate ourselves
from the visceral process we
forget about nutrient density,
rather that it [food] must be
produced faster and in more
volume.”
Modifying DNA and
producing genetically-
engineered organisms, he
says, will extricate people
from nature’s patterns – “and
they are more powerful than
the banks, stocks and bonds,
even the creativity of the
human mind.
“Many problems are created
by our own innovation. We
want food that is shelf stable,
not that it tastes better. It’s all
about sterile food that won’t
rot.”
As people extricate
themselves from the system,
over time food becomes
an unknown, a culinary
ignorance develops and the
result is fear, he says.
“We are creating a population
that fears food.”
PROFITABILITY FROM PIGS: Joel Salatin shuns expensive fuel
and machinery for pigs to make compost.
Photography supplied